😺AI Doctors are here...kinda

Welcome, humans.

It turns out, Germany’s 4 day workweek experiment was a massive hit. Are you shocked?

The experiment works like this: you keep 100% of your salary, and produce 100% of your same output, but work 80% of your previous hours. They call it a “100-80-100” plan… but WE call it the AI-powered workweek preview.

Soon, we'll upgrade to the “100-0-100 plan”… where AI does 100% of the work, and you keep 100% of the pay, with 0% time spent. Work smarter, not harder!

Then again, this chart might disagree with that prediction…

Here’s what you need to know about AI today:

• We analyze the splurge in AI healthcare spending.
• US tightened China chip sale rules; NVIDIA responded.
• iPhone sales fell 5% after AI features disappointed.
• OpenAI released a national AI policy recommendation.

Advertise in The Neuron here.

Tens of billions invested in Healthcare AI so far... and your hospital probably can't use any of it

Tried finding a new doctor lately? Every call ends the same way: “Sorry, we're not accepting new patients” or “Sure, we can see you... in 4 months!”

It's exactly these kinds of headaches that have investors pour BILLIONS into healthcare in 2024—we’re talking $10.5B across 511 deals—and if January is any indication, 2025 is on pace to pass that.

Let's see who's working on fixing our broken healthcare system...

• Qventus snagged $105M for their AI “operational assistants” that help hospitals run smoother. Think less paperwork, more patient care—they've already eliminated 36,000+ excess hospital days per year.
• Hippocratic AI hit unicorn status by creating AI agents for stuff like pre-op prep and appointment scheduling—they've already signed 23 contracts with major health systems.
• Innovaccer grabbed $275M to become the data plumbers of healthcare— connecting all those siloed systems and adding AI co-pilots for things like medical scribing and insurance approvals.

Turns out, “AI scribe” tools in particular have become so common, the startups making them are coming up with new ways to brand themselves to stand out.

Medical payment software companies are getting in on AI. too. WayStar, which processed $1.2T in payments, just released new genAI tools to automate provider claim appeals faster than a Zyn-pack popping paralegal can say “reimbursement.”

AI in medical technology is sort of a different story.

• Bright side: the FDA has approved 500+ AI medical devices.
• Not so bright side: of the 16 medical AI procedures tracked in insurance claims, only 4 have been used more than 1,000 times.
• Mid (??) side: Most haven't even been around a year (median age: ~374 days)… so there's clearly a gap between hype and real-world usage.

Now, where is this AI med-tech actually showing up? Exactly where you'd expect:

• 71% of academic medical centers use AI vs just 9% of other hospitals.
• Rich zip codes have 2x the adoption rate of poorer areas.
• Medicare pays $45 for an AI eye scan while private insurance pays $127.

Why this matters: While VCs are betting billions that AI will fix healthcare's problems, 2025 will be about the unglamorous work of getting doctors to actually use these tools. There’s no industry standard atm, and HHS only yesterday released “strategic plan” for how to address AI in healthcare.

With nearly half of US doctors reporting burnout, doctors are optimistic that AI can help. The willingness is there, so the opportunity is huge.

And there are a ton of cool ideas for where AI-powered health-tech can go from here. But first, can y’all help us “undoctored” folks actually book that annual check-up we’ve been putting off?

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Meet Elf Labs: They Just Won 100+ Trademark Battles for Snow White and Cinderella

Here's something wild: A next-gen tech company called Elf Labs just secured the rights to the world's most beloved fairy tale characters—and they're not just sitting on this billion-dollar IP.

They're revolutionizing how kids experience these stories with:

• Patented AR tech that brings characters into your living room (no headsets!)
• AI-powered interactive toys that let kids chat with Cinderella
• Three major franchises launching in 2025
• Technology protected by 12 groundbreaking patents

The team behind it? They’ve generated $6B+ in licensing deals over their careers.

Now, for a limited time, Elf Labs has opened investment to the public.

Invest in Elf Labs Today.

Prompt Tip of the Day

This meta-prompt hack lets you create killer prompts that make ChatGPT generate exactly what you want. We’ve actually been using prompts like this to help us write better prompts lately. Very Meta…but very useful.

Treats To Try.

1. Want AI that runs directly on your devices—no internet needed? Learn how with LatentAI's CEO, using Dell and NVIDIA's latest tech. Register here.
2. PlayDialog turns your text into emotionally expressive voice conversations, with natural-sounding narration for your audiobooks, podcasts, and videos.
3. Minduck Discovery is a search engine that transforms your questions into interactive mind maps, answering any topic with an organized visual layout.
4. Kolors is Kling AI’s new image model with a special focus on accurately rendering text within the images (more about it here).
5. Google’s AI Studio can now be installed as a desktop app, work with unlimited-length outputs, and combine text, images and code together in one interface.
6. Sagehood delivers personalized stock recommendations and portfolio insights before markets open to help you make smarter investment decisions.
7. Folk suggests the best leads to follow up with and drafts personalized responses based on your past conversations so you don’t miss important deals.

See our top 51 AI Tools for Business here!

*This is sponsored content. Advertise in The Neuron here.

Around the Horn.

• The Biden Administration shared a “final rule” on how many chips NVIDIA can sell to China—and NVIDIA had thoughts (gross oversimplification, but it gets the point across).
• OpenAI released an economic blueprint for AI that proposes nationwide policies to drive innovation, attract investment, and ensure equitable, democratic development of the technology.
• iPhone sales dropped 5% after its AI tools underwhelmed people (like we wrote about yesterday!).
• NVIDIA is working w/ Mayo Clinic and other medical orgs to train new AI foundation models to advance pathology, genomics, and drug discovery.

FROM OUR PARTNERS

If you're hiring in the next 18 months, you need A.Team's report on recruiting AI talent. Learn how leading CTOs are scaling faster with “blended teams.” Download now.

Tuesday Ticker

Let’s take a poll! In December, OpenAI launched a flurry of announcements. A lot of these were new tools and features available to try out. But how many of these tools are you ACTUALLY using in 2025? Let us know below!

Here’s a quick refresher of what they announced:

• Day 12: o3 preview.
• Day 11: Work with apps.
• Day 10: 1-800-CHATGPT.
• Day 9: Holiday treats for devs.
• Day 8: SearchGPT.
• Day 7: Projects in ChatGPT.
• Day 6: Advanced vision mode.
• Day 5: ChatGPT in Apple Intelligence.
• Day 4: Canvas.
• Day 3: Sora.
• Day 2: Reinforcement fine-tuning.
• Day 1: o1 & ChatGPT Pro.

Which of these ChatGPT features do you use in 2025?

Write in and tell us how often, too.

1-800-CHATGPT

SearchGPT

Projects in ChatGPT

Advanced vision mode

ChatGPT + Apple Intelligence

Canvas

Sora

ChatGPT Pro and/or full o1

A Cat's Commentary.